


Splinter Inside Me

by indigostohelit



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, F/M, Gotham, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's say the devil is played by two women. Let's not call them anything.</p><p>It's been years, and it's still winter. Gotham City sleeps, and rots, and waits to explode. The thing about stories, then, is that they have a tendency to repeat themselves, and she knows that better than you ever will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Splinter Inside Me

Let's say that the devil has two hands, white as bone. Let's say the devil is a porcelain doll in a maid's dress, with glass eyes and painted-on lips; let's say the devil is hard and cool, smooth and utterly perfect.

Let's say the devil is a cat.

It's all right. She's used to it.

 

Gotham has ash underneath her skin, the grime of the sewers stuck to the inside of her arteries; oh, you thought _that_ was a coincidence? Gotham has lain sleeping over the icy ground for years now, the crystallized snowflakes floating in the sky above her. Her smokestack lungs hiss exhaust into the frozen air, skyscrapers cluster at the creases of her hipbones, and if you follow the winding trail of her veins straight back to her heart, you can even see where the cancer has begun to spread.

 

Today her name is Selina Kyle. Tomorrow her name will be anything you like, and it will still be winter. 

None of these people understand how nice it is to come in out of the cold.

She dresses in black because it blends in, though she won't say to _what_. She dresses in black because she has a healthy respect for stories; in this town, it's hard not to. She dresses in black because it makes her smile look pale as snow, and when people are looking at your face, they aren't watching your hands.

Pay attention. Nothing up my sleeve.

And here we _go._

She lives in the night, because the day is full of sunlight and lies and newsprint. She keeps her mouth shut, because most people would rather watch her lips than see her bare her teeth. She makes choices, because she doesn't have any.

That's always the story, isn't it?

She has been asleep for years now. She has been rotting for years now. She has been Gotham for years now. One of these things is not like the other.

Today her name is not Selina Kyle. Today it never was. If you're such a famous detective, then, you can make your own deductions.

 

Fairy tales are one thing. Real ivory towers are quite another. She has no time to spend convincing fully grown men that dragons aren't real; if you're going to find your way down, you'll have to do it yourself.

She has scars in places you can't see, because it's important to be picturesque. Most of them are from fire. She's younger than you, you know; she's older, too. She's cold, and it's winter, unless that was supposed to be the other way around.

 

There's a bomb. They pretend to be building her, but instead they build a bomb. They say that changing things will mean the people will be safe; it's a lie. The bomb was always going to go off.

What can she say? She's never been much of a poet, and besides, all that subtle academia in literature is for the rich. Her metaphors are not much more than a brick to the head. She is not much more than a brick to the head. Same thing.

 

She meets you at a party, dressed as a maid. She meets you at a party, dressed as a clown. She meets you at a party, dressed as a scarecrow. She meets you at a party, and before that, she meets you at an opera, dressed as a man with a gun.

 _I think you and I are destined to do this forever,_ she says.

She's been asleep for years, and it is always winter. She's been rotting for years, and the snow is covering her face. She's been Gotham for years, and through her grime-stuck veins and arteries, at the very heart of her, her people set her on fire for warmth.

The bomb was always going to go off. She opens her eyes.

 

Let's say the devil is played by two women. Let's not call them anything. You _know_ they never come when they're called.

They're both on a motorcycle. One of them owns it, and one of them does not, depending on which one you are in love with at the time. Do not choose sides yet. You are, as you always have been, a product of stories; you know there are stories about cats, and choices. This one needs someone who is both dead and alive.

Today her name is Selina Kyle. Tomorrow it never will have been.

 

She, though. She _does_ make choices, because she never had any.

She knows the difference between defeating dragons and finding out they don't exist. Every knight ought to know that. Don’t you?

  
Let's say that the devil has two hands, skin, a face. Let's say that the devil is a porcelain doll that never shatters, a maid's dress she puts on like a dress-up game while the cancer burns inside her. Let's say that the devil is perfect, and her horns are black and swing down onto her eyes so she can look around at the dark, because everyone knows you can't see your own reflection without a little help.

Let's say that you fall in love with her.

Now, let's say that you fall in love with the other one.

Either way, it is still the wrong choice.

 

Today her name is Selina Kyle. Today her name has always been Selina Kyle. Today her name will always be Selina Kyle, and if she won't come when she's called, at least she loves him, and they are at a cafe in Florence, their faces lined, their eyes tired but happy.

Today her name is not Selina Kyle. Today her name has never been Selina Kyle, and she doesn't believe in tomorrow anyway. She won't come when she's called, either.

High above the city, a robin begins to sing, because she's never been particularly subtle with metaphors.

Today you come up from your cave deep inside her heart where the cancer still burns, fresh-faced and dripping. She makes her choices, because she doesn't have any. The robin, she's heard, heralds new beginnings.

They do say the best romances are always ghost stories.


End file.
